Star Spangled DC War Stories Part 95: August/September 1967

The DC War Comics
1959-1976
by Corporals Enfantino and Seabrook

Kubert

 Our Army at War 183

"Sergeants Don't Stay Dead!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Russ Heath

"Invisible Sniper!"
Story by Howard Liss
Art by Neal Adams

Jack: A cartoonist is following Easy Company, drawing pictures from the war, when he is killed in an attack by a Nazi plane. Sgt. Rock sees that his last work was a sheet with three drawings of Rock himself, as a soldier in the American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War One. Rock is knocked out in a battle with a tank and dreams that he's fighting in each of the wars the cartoonist pictured. Every time, he fights to the death and earns the enemy's admiration, but "Sergeants Don't Stay Dead!" and he wakes up on the tank to find the rest of the men of Easy Co. finishing the job for him.

"Sergeants Don't Stay Dead!"

As I read this story, I thought "Gee, it would be neat if Sgt. Rock dreamed he was in each of those wars!" Apparently, Bob Kanigher was listening to me, because that's right where the story went. Yes, it's a bit predictable and repetitive, but Heath outdoes himself in drawing the different uniforms and battles, so it's a fun read.

A Nazi named Hans Ritter acted on the stage before the war, so when his commander asks him to become an "Invisible Sniper!" in order to kill some G.I.s and give the rest of his men time to escape from a village, Hans relishes the role. His disguise as an old woman works out fine but when he dresses as an American soldier and forgets he's still holding his German rifle, it's time to ring down the curtain.

A rather exciting story, this, featuring more art by the great Neal Adams. It's thrilling to see him at the start of his career and he already shows a great sense of pacing and outstanding skill at drawing faces.

"Invisible Sniper!"

Peter: Neither script is much of  a winner. The Rock story seems awfully familiar but I may be confusing it with the silly Viking story from a few months ago. "Invisible Sniper!" is palatable but Howard Liss falls victim to one of the most egregious Kanigh-errors, that of driving a line of dialogue home time after time until it becomes tedious (in this case, "I have fooled the Amerikaners because I am a supreme actor!"). The reveal, in the last panel, when the G.I. comments on the Nazi's foolish blunder, might have worked better if it wasn't already shown to us on the previous page. But all is not lost thanks to two of the best artists of the 1960s. Heath continues to adapt to Sgt. Rock (after a "rocky start" some months ago); yes, Kubert fans, I know he'll never be Joe but at least Rock is starting to look like Rock and not Doc Savage. Neal Adams just seems to be getting better every successive month, showing some of those visual flairs that will soon be put to insanely good use on Batman.

Heath

 G.I. Combat 125

"Stay Alive--Until Dark!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Russ Heath

"Clay Pigeon Sub!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Russ Heath
(from Our Army at War #47, June 1956)

Peter: The Allieds have one heck of a problem: the Nazis have blown the hell out of the tin can population and the Jeb Stuart is one of only a handful left in the entire sector. The C.O. radios his orders: "Stay Alive--Until Dark!" and fool the enemy into thinking that four tanks are actually forty. It's a suicide mission for certain but no man shirks his duty and the Jeb Stuart rolls toward the French village of Crecy. Along the way, the Jeb fights off a multitude of German tanks and bombers with the help of the ghostly General Jeb Stuart. At last arriving at Crecy, the Jeb battles much larger German tanks but beats the odds and survives until nightfall. Heading for home, they save a couple of G.I.s about to be flattened by an enemy tank. Turns out to be Jeb's old buddy, Sgt. Rock. The two men muse about survival in World War II as the sun goes down.

"Stay Alive--Until Dark!"

Great work from Russ Heath

A thoroughly enjoyable and exciting adventure; I'd have to say, in fact, that this is the best Haunted Tank story I've ever read. It just has all the right ingredients: gorgeous art, snappy dialogue that avoids the usual Kanigher-isms (aside from the requisite panel that shows Jeb's comrades doubting his sanity) and edge-of-the-seat danger. When the boys shoot down an attacking Messerschmitt and the tank is covered in burning wreckage, you can almost feel the heat and claustrophobia within the Jeb. The spirited General, usually given a two- or three-panel cameo at best, actually gives his descendant some advice that means something this time (at one point the ghost tells Jeb he's been assigned as his guardian angel which, when I thought about how little help the dead guy gives, made me chuckle). He's almost a spectral version of Marvel's Watcher. And, again, I can't say enough about Russ's art here; that final panel is a stunner.

Jack: The story has a good premise and the scene in part one where the tank is overheated by flaming hunks of plane is genuinely exciting. It's good to see the ghost giving more help than usual and I also like the panels where tanks smash through the walls of houses. One question, though, about tank warfare in general--don't they make a lot of noise? It makes me wonder how tanks can ever sneak up on each other.

"Clay Pigeon Sub!"

Peter: U.S. submarine, the Shark, is stuck above water and is a "Clay Pigeon Sub!," a sitting duck for any passing enemy ship. The skipper uses his know-how to get his men through some dangerous scrapes and manages to get the sub back where it belongs: on the ocean's bottom. Unfortunately, once there, another snafu occurs when their propeller gets stuck in the mud! Again, the skipper's smarts get them through the scrape and the Shark ends up blowing a key Nazi Wolf sub to hell. It's amazing to see how far Russ Heath had come in a decade; the art is well done but doesn't really show the Heath flare he'd later exhibit. The story kept me involved but it's jammed full of those moments when you doubt the enemy could ever hit a target they were aiming at.

Jack: I read this without looking at the credits and I could tell it was a reprint right away. The stories from the '50s in DC war comics are less complex and the art is more straightforward. It's a good thing Heath signed it; one panel looked like Ross Andru's work to me.

More Heath

Novick

Our Fighting Forces 108

"Kill the Wolf Pack!"
Story by Howard Liss
Art by Jack Abel

"Flying Jeep!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito
(Reprinted from Our Army at War #47, June 1956)

Jack: D-Day is only days away but the Nazis have U-boats guarding the French coast in pens with concrete walls. Lt. Hunter and his Hellcats are assigned to "Kill the Wolf Pack!" by driving a fishing boat into enemy waters so that it will get captured and taken to be docked near the U-boats. What the Nazis don't know is that the boat has a false hull and is packed with TNT, which blows sky high as planned and destroys the U-boats.

The Hellcats then steal a Nazi jeep to head 20 miles to a hilltop, where they are to be rescued by a plane. The Nazis give chase, so the Hellcats commandeer a Nazi tank and make it to their rendezvous point. Nazi Major Von Kramm follows them, angry that they destroyed his submarine base. The Hellcats win a machine gun battle and get to the plane, though Von Kramm tries one last, desperate leap to stop Lt. Hunter. The lieutenant ducks and Von Kramm is chopped to bits by an airplane's propeller. The Hellcats get away safely, ready for another suicide mission.

"Kill the Wolf Pack!"

One need only look back two months to Our Army at War 181 to see the last time someone was killed off by being chopped up by propeller blades. This latest episode of Hunter's Hellcats is by the numbers--not awful but not memorable, either.

Peter: Only three chapters in and "Hunter's Hellcats" has become Hogan's Heroes with its bad one-liners and inept adventures. Abel's art is no better.

Jack: Since he was a kid, Lennie Brown always missed his target. Now that he's in the Army, the same thing keeps happening. He falls into the drink instead of landing on an assault boat, but while he's under water he blows up a Nazi sub with TNT that was meant for his own boat. Told to drive a jeep to the next town, he encounters Nazi gunfire and the jeep is destroyed. Later, as a paratrooper, his parachute is shot full of holes, but he lands in a jeep that is also descending by parachute. From the jeep's front seat, he blasts a Nazi plane out of the air. Why does his commanding officer keep complaining? Lennie single handedly saved a boat full of soldiers and destroyed an enemy plane! The story doesn't make a lot of sense but, for some reason, the Andru and Esposito art of 1956 is much easier to take than their art of the 1960s.

Peter: "Flying Jeep!" is at least a bit enjoyable and the 1956  Andru and Esposito team was certainly better than in 1966. A singularly unremarkable issue of Our Fighting Forces. More interesting is the letters page, where we find missives from super-fan Arnold (Arnie) Fenner and future Marvel editor Al Milgrom. Al suggests that Big Bob should bring back the 1940s junior war gang, the Boy Commandos, seeing as how "revivals are quite big today." Al would get his wish but he'd have to wait twenty years until Len Wein would use the BCs in his Blue Beetle reboot.

"Flying Jeep!"

Jack: DC also revived the Boy Commandos in the early '70s as a short-lived reprint series.

Heath

 Star Spangled War Stories 134

"The Killing Ground!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Neal Adams

"Ace of the Death Cloud!"
Story by Howard Liss
Art by Jack Abel

Peter: Lt. Blake has come under fire for being soft and Ensign Frye is itching to take command of their PT boat but more pressing matters appear on the blue horizon: prehistoric monster dinosaurs from the stone age at the dawn of time have suddenly surfaced between the PT and the destroyer that had been dogging them, making the Pacific "The Killing Ground!" Sea serpents drag the destroyer to the bottom of the ocean, kayoing one threat to our boys, but then a giant octopus wraps its deadly tentacles around the little boat. Only a synchronized volley of TNT cupcakes blasts the octopus into diner's portions. Through a haze of fog, the men spot an island and decide to investigate. Approaching, they are fired on by the enemy, who had obviously ensconced themselves on this little good-for-nothing plot of ground. Suddenly, a giant Platiobrontosaur crushes the machine-gunners with a well-placed tree before turning its attention to the pretty floating thing just offshore. Luckily, the men are able to destroy the stone-age nightmare creature with a well-synchronized volley of TNT rumballs; unluckily, the beast holds fast to the PT. Waiting for the tide to come in and float them to safety, the Lt. and his men wade ashore to look for more snipers. Just then, a pterodactyl swoops in and carries away the Ensign and the Lt. feels obliged to search for him. Frye is rescued just before he is to be consumed by two very hungry birds. The men make their way back to the PT, confident that their Ensign now feels as though the skipper is the man for the job.

"The Killing Ground!"

There's no denying that Neal Adams was a major talent even in his very early days; his dinos are fabulously detailed and the action scenes are among the best we've seen in this series. There's also no denying that this series spotlights some of the laziest writing in Bob Kanigher's career. You can argue that "G.I.s vs. Dinosaurs" is an extremely limited concept but, for goodness sake, couldn't the guy have tried now and then to elevate this above kid's stuff? The animosity between Blake and Frye is laughable; there's no real reason given for Frye's objection to Blake's service other than a desire to lead the men himself. I get that; how could I not since it's hammered home time and again (even, in the story's most inane moment, as the Ensign is being spirited away by a carnivorous beast!). Maybe there was some incident just prior to the story's opening that precipitates what, at best, could be seen as rambunctiousness and, at worst, as mutiny, but we're not privy to any such event. It's a shame to waste such dazzling visuals on the same old thing.

Jack: Adams's creative page layouts are impressive and point the way forward to the great work he would soon do for DC and Marvel. He must have had a Big Book of Dinosaurs on his drawing table when he penciled this story, because he sure provides a smorgasbord of monsters for our entertainment. The pterodactyl was good practice for his depiction of Sauron two years later in X-Men 60 and 61.

"Ace of the Death Cloud!"

Peter: Captain Brown swears he shot up the Flying Dutchman but the ace disappears into an eerie black cloud and is never seen again. That is, until Brown is training a new fighter pilot, Bill Hall, and the two planes enter the same black cloud; there, waiting for Brown, is the "Ace of the Death Cloud!" The Dutchman dispatches Brown and leaves Hall, swearing vengeance on the ghostly Fokker. At last, Hall has his moment with destiny and finds the Dutchman while patrolling the skies. To ensure he gets the infamous killer, he rams the Dutchman and the two planes fall to the ground. A nicely-placed haystack softens the blow but, when Hall comes to and tries to convince his comrades he took down the Dutchman, the boys point out that the only wreckage is Bill's Spad. As he sifts through the rubble, Bill Hall finds the insignia of the Flying Dutchman buried in the twisted metal. I'm a sucker for these Weird War Tales, even when they don't make much sense and Jack Abel, once again, amazes me with his seesawing art. How can this guy be so bad in some instances and, as here, so good in others?

Jack: I guess we have to grade Jack Abel's art on a curve--is it Good Abel or Bad Abel? If you compare it to the art by Neal Adams in the first story, it falls woefully short. Still, this is definitely Good Abel, and the WWI planes sure do look cool in the flying scenes. The ghostly aspect is also welcome, as you point out.

More Adams!

Kubert

Our Army at War 184

"Candidate for a Firing Squad!"
Story by Robert Kanigher
Art by Joe Kubert

"Invasion Beach Taxi!"
Story by Bob Haney
Art by Russ Heath
(Reprinted from Our Army at War #44, March 1956)

Jack: Sgt. Rock and the men of Easy Co. are about to execute a "Candidate for a Firing Squad!" named Vic Smith, a deserter who mocks their guns. Just then, Nazi paratroopers attack! Easy Co. defeats the enemy and, rather than shooting Smith, Rock decides to take him to HQ and let the brass decide what to do with him.

On the way to HQ, Rock takes a bullet from a Nazi plane while protecting Smith. Little Sure Shot saves Smith from a land mine and Wee Willie is killed when he jumps in front of Smith and takes a Nazi bullet. When a tank flattens Easy Co., Smith attacks it on his own and is killed saving Rock and his men. As he dies, he sees Rock saluting him as a real soldier.

"Candidate for a Firing Squad!"

Russ Heath does a great job filling in for Joe Kubert on Sgt. Rock, but there's nothing like the real thing, as the old song goes. The death of Wee Willie is a shock, since he's a real character that we've gotten to know over the months and years, not just a new recruit thrown in for an issue to be killed off. Smith's epiphany is believable and the plotting works out when he dies, since he was a man marked for death from the start.

"Invasion Beach Taxi!"

A soldier who drives an "Invasion Beach Taxi!" feels like he never gets to engage in battle, since he just runs a ship back and forth ferrying men from ships to the tide line. What he doesn't seem to realize is that he serves as an example of heroism for the men--fixing a motor under fire, tossing a grenade back at a frogman, and machine-gunning an enemy plane out of the sky. A reprint from 1956, this story shows strong writing by Bob Haney and solid, early work by Heath, rounding out a fine issue of Our Army at War.

Peter: Both Big Bob and Sgt. Rock are stuck in a rut. "Candidate" is another poor script with the requisite touches--awkward shout out to the title (twice), Easy blasting a Nazi plane from the sky yet avoiding immolation, and the same message (every G.I. is equal as long as they wear the uniform) hammered home ad infinitum. Even Joe's work here is a bit sketchy. I liked the reprint much more with its "the grass is always greener . . ." message and, of course, Russ's art is easy on the eyes.

Next Week:
A pack of Jack Kamen fans
finally catches up to Peter